


The things we do in the darkness

by Dissenter



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Child Abuse, Canonical Rape/Non-con, Origin Story, Overstretched welfare system, Parent/Child Incest, breaking point, failure of the legal system
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 02:44:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4649229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dissenter/pseuds/Dissenter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The girl in flat thirty six B cries every night, after her father leaves. Matt hears everything. <br/>The story of the trigger incident for Matt becoming Daredevil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The things we do in the darkness

**Author's Note:**

> Reply to this prompt on the kink meme http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/4501.html?thread=7985813#cmt7985813

Matt couldn’t sleep. Hadn’t slept properly once in the week since he’d moved in. The girl in number thirty six B was crying again, and he’d never felt so helpless.

The first night it took longer than it should have for Matt to understand. He wasn’t an idiot, he knew it happened. Some of the kids at the orphanage had told stories, about foster parents, and biological parents, and teachers, and just about anyone else. He knew what some adults would do to a child in their power. But there was knowing and there was _knowing._ All the things he overheard, the gentle click of the door, the whispered warning to be quiet. A man’s heavy breathing, a little girl’s stifled whimpers, the faint squeak of the bedsprings. And then another click of the door as he left, and the sound of a child crying alone. It took him longer than it should have to consciously put it together, but on a deeper level he knew almost instantly. Like the time Stick broke his arm, and he knew something wasn’t right with it, but it wasn’t until the fight was over that he was able to process the fact it was broken.

The next morning he put in an anonymous call to child services. It took them two days to arrive. He knew just how thin the system was stretched, he shouldn’t have been surprised, but somehow he was. He also knew the law, and he shouldn’t have been surprised when they were forced to go away empty handed. There was no evidence after all, no evidence and the girl wouldn’t talk, was too afraid. He should have expected that, children were always too willing to lie for those they feared. He shouldn’t have been surprised and yet he was. He listened to the whole thing from down the block, and the father sounded so _normal,_ everyday hardworking family man. Matt punched the wall when the social worker fell for it, and went away without looking closer. Then he punched it again, and again, until he could taste metal on the air from the blood-stained dents he’d left in the wall and his hands were too battered to even tie his laces. It wasn’t the social worker’s fault, he told himself. She probably had thirty cases already on her plate where she knew for a fact something was wrong, the father was a skilled liar, he didn’t leave bruises. Matt kept telling himself that, but he couldn’t stop thinking that she was supposed to be the expert, she was supposed to know, she was supposed to make it _stop_ and she didn’t.

That night the girl cried again, quieter, afraid that someone would hear her. Her father had made clear to her the consequences if someone overheard her. Matt called the police from a payphone. They stopped by the flat, and the father rolled out his pillar of the community act again, and the mother started demanding that the police track down whoever was making these calls. She saw what she wanted to see, she didn’t want to believe it was true. So she helped cover it up, saying that clearly this was the malicious work of someone carrying a grudge against her husband, trying to ruin his good name. The police said they’d look into it. The father made the daughter pay in ways that wouldn’t leave marks. Matt punched the wall again. Ended up having to stop by A&E to check he hadn’t broken his fingers. The doctor bandaged them, and warned him against punching any more walls. Matt fantasised about punching something softer than walls.

Matt didn’t go home the next night. Stayed up in a bar, not Josie’s, pretended not to be blind and got into a bar fight. He didn’t feel any better. They weren’t the ones he wanted to hit. He knew Foggy was worried about him, his hands were a mess and he clearly hadn’t been sleeping, but he muttered something about a bad breakup and not wanting to talk about it and Foggy left it alone like the good friend he was. He almost told Foggy the truth, but that would have meant coming clean about his senses, and in any case what good would it do. It wasn’t like either of them had any power to do anything, and while talking about it might make _Matt_ feel better he wasn’t about to drop this whole heartbreaking mess on Foggy’s shoulders. Foggy was a decent, kind person, Matt didn’t want this knowledge to eat him alive the way it was eating Matt. He deserved better.

Two days later Matt ran into the girl in the daylight. He was sitting in the park by the river, and she sat down next to him, feeding the ducks.

“Are you really blind?” She had asked.

“Yes I am.” He had struggled to keep his voice steady.

“What’s it like?” she used that tone of voice that children use while staring at their own shoes, shy and quiet, and full of helpless defiance, so Matt didn’t deflect the way he usually did.

“Dark.” And that was really the only honest thing he could say. It was dark, always and forever, and that wasn’t ok. He couldn’t lie to her when he knew too many of her secrets.

“I guess that must be scary.” She said, “I don’t like it when it's dark. That’s when the monsters come out.” And Matt wished it wasn’t true but he knew it was. He was still trying to think what to say to her, when she got up.

“I’ve got to go now. Bye.” And then she’d run off, and he could hear her playing with the other kids on the street, pretending to be ok. Children were always such good liars. Or maybe it was just that adults were less able to pick up on children’s lies. He remembered telling the nuns he broke his arm falling off a skateboard. They hadn't questioned it, just scolded him for his recklessness while taking him to get his arm set. It was easy for a child to lie to an adult, as long as they fit in with the adult’s expectations.

That night she’d cried again. Matt hadn’t punched the wall. He just lay in his bed listening, and cried with her. He’d believed in the law, he really had, but the law had failed. It had failed her, it had failed him, it had failed the whole of bloody Hell’s Kitchen. The law said he had to stand by and do nothing, to listen night after night as a man raped his daughter, and a girl cried herself to sleep. He couldn’t, not if he wanted to call himself a human being.

The next night he’d followed the father on his way home from work and beat him bloody, half remembered fighting techniques rushing back to him so easily. He’d hit, and kept on hitting, until the man was unconscious, and then he’d hit him some more. He hadn’t realized how good it would feel. Pain, and adrenaline, and the feeling of flesh and bone crunching under his fists, and the pure satisfaction of making the bastard _pay_ for those tears in the night. It wasn’t enough, nothing would ever be enough, she was a _little girl_ and he’d gone into her room and… And he was her _father_ he was supposed to protect her. It wasn’t enough but it felt so good, and Matt knew he would do this again.

That night he slept more soundly than he had in years.


End file.
